But this expense was all he could carry, for the demands of the establishment at Edgewater were steadily increasing with the early coming of winter; he was sent for oftener, and a physician was now in practically continual attendance.
Also, three times a week he boarded the Sandy Hook boat, returning always at night because he dared not remain at the reservation lest an imperative telegram from Edgewater find him unable to respond.
So, when in November the first few hurrying snow-flakes whirled in among the city's canons of masonry and iron, Selwyn had already systematised his winter schedule; and when Nina opened her house, returning from Lenox with Eileen to do so, she found that Selwyn had made his own arrangements for the winter, and that, according to the programme, neither she nor anybody else was likely to see him oftener than one evening in a week.
To Boots she complained bitterly, having had visions of Selwyn and Gerald as permanent fixtures of family support during the season now imminent.
"I cannot understand," she said, "why Philip is acting this way.

He need not work like that; there is no necessity, because he has a comfortable income.

If he is determined to maintain a stuffy apartment somewhere, of course I won't insist on his coming to us as he ought to, but to abandon us in this manner makes me almost indignant.

Besides, it's having anything but a salutary effect on Eileen." "What effect is it having on Eileen ?" inquired Boots curiously.
"Oh, I don't know," said Nina, coming perilously close to a pout; "but I see symptoms--indeed I do, Boots!--symptoms of shirking the winter's routine.

It's to be a gay season, too, and it's only her second.